Cohort Cohesion

[HadrianJones]

How cohesive / how strong is the sense of community among your cohort? Do you interact a lot with the people in your cohort? Did you attend an orientation before you enrolled to get acquintated with the other members of your cohort? Any pesonal experiences would be greatly appreciated.

[Nofia]

It varies by program. My cohort is extremely close--we go out pretty regularly for drinks/dinner and we're always there for each other in good times and bad--but I know that cohorts at other schools aren't close at all. If your school has a "boot-camp" kind of class that everyone has to take together, it's pretty likely that you'll end up getting close with your fellows, just because its a shared experience.

[StrangeLight]

my cohort cohesion is mixed.

by discipline, we're pretty close. latin americanists and atlantic historians all hang out. not a whole lot of time to run around tearing up the town, but i'd say there's something doing once a month that a good number show up for. at the same time, there are people studying US or european history that i've never met and it's a month in already.

[kahlan_amnell]

There is a pretty strong sense of community among students in my department, not just my cohort, and we interact a lot.

We had one orientation meeting for a few hours at the start of the semester, but I don't think that had anything to do with it.

[misterpat]

I'm kind of interested in this question myself. I keep hearing that law school is a lot like high school, but I can't imagine that will be so in a phd program.

[thepoorstockinger]

My experience is that it breaks down along some lines (like who has class together, who is TAing what class and who is sharing an office with who) but mostly according to personalities. Other than one person everyone hates there isn't a lot of divisions in my cohort. We don't even know who most of the students in other years are however.

Some of us go out and get drinks together/eat/see movies together and we try to invite everyone but some people just choose not join us. I think it's important to realize that with grad school compared to undergrad people are on wildly different schedules (I have three courses this semester, some people in my cohort have one) and are at wildly different points in their lives (we have married 22 year olds, part timers in their 40s, a bunch of 30 somethings who left careers to pursue grad school, a 55 year old who thinks she's a faculty member).